


Navigate Me Like The Stars

by mssrj_335



Series: FinnPoe Purple Prose [19]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Feels, DEEP AND ABIDING LOVE, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fear, Finn Needs A Hug (Star Wars), Finntrospection, Insecurity, Inspired by Music, M/M, POV Finn (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Purple Prose, Supportive Poe Dameron, Whump, change is hard, light banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29553558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssrj_335/pseuds/mssrj_335
Summary: Finn's feeling fearful of the future. The Resistance is over. The mission is done. And he's left with the question of: what do I do now? Poe might not have all the answers, but that doesn't mean he won't be there through it.
Relationships: Finn/Poe Dameron, Finnpoe, Poe Dameron/Finn, Stormpilot - Relationship
Series: FinnPoe Purple Prose [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1744870
Comments: 22
Kudos: 35





	Navigate Me Like The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> look i was just thinking about how finn would handle the end of the resistance. this doesn't have to be the end all be all but i still wonder. so happy belated birthday to me, yay angst  
> i just threw this up and didn't really edit much, sorry for mistakes therein

“[You](https://youtu.be/JKlSVNxLB-A) do the handsome brooding thing pretty well, you know.”

Caught. Finn scoffs and tries to shake off the tension in his shoulders. Drops his head into a turn, just to find Poe looking incredibly nonchalant.

“Whatever you’re selling with that body language, I’m not buying,” he retorts.

A little grin breaks over Poe’s face but if there’s anything more, Finn doesn’t see it. He turns back over the balcony, back to the stars and all his empty worries. He hears Poe’s soft bootstep though.

“Who says I’m selling something?” Poe murmurs from his side, leaning next to and into him.

“Those hands on your hips tell me all I need to know, thanks.” Finn tilts back on his heels, mimicking Poe’s posture and pretending to sweep hair out of his face as he’s seen the pilot so often do. “‘Why you out here sulking, Finn? Why not celebrate with everyone else, Finn? C’mon buddy, let’s go get punch-drunk and I’ll sweep you off your feet.’”

Poe snorts and smacks him in the chest, lingering just a little. “My dastardly plans have been made.”

“Yeah well…” Finn actually does grin some, deciding to lean over the balustrade and try to enjoy Poe’s easy company. “Don’t think I’m your guy tonight. Guess you’ll have to sweep someone else.”

“Nah.” Poe sucks his teeth and settles in. “Not in my department. Not in this galaxy. Not ever, actually.”

“I still can’t believe it took this long though.”

“Had bigger problems at hand, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but this was _after_. Even _after_ that kiss on Chandrila, I wasn’t sure we were on the same page. I think you’re just dense.”

“That was _years_ ago!”

“And I still think about it,” he chuckles. “Your face…”

“Just one of the many things you love about me.”

“True.” There’s a long pause, then **_it_** starts to creep back in. “Nah, you’re not dense. You’re gorgeous and smart and funny—”

Finn sighs, feeling himself stiffen up. As much as he loves Poe and would expound upon his virtues for as long as anyone would listen, it throws into sharp relief his feelings about himself. The vast, yawning void aching in his chest that pulled him from the party to the balcony. Back to the edge and to loneliness. Even in a sea of people, he felt so desolate. Tense and nauseous and—ah, here it comes. He chews his lip. Poe frowns.

“And sometimes, I just don’t know what you see in me. Especially now that everything’s over…”

“Finn—”

No stopping it, everything else just claws up his throat.

“I was _made_ for this, you know. Raised to do one thing, to meet one end. And now it—it’s all slipping away. Who am I if not that? Who am I supposed to be if the First Order’s gone and the Resistance is done?”

Well. It all just came tumbling out, didn’t it. He chances a glance at Poe, biting the inside of his cheek at the gobsmacked expression.

“Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No! Don’t be sorry…”

Poe struggles to recover, to find some ground. It’s like Finn can see it all happening, like he’s able to really watch Poe make the leaps and calculations between Finn’s thoughts and map his way to an answer. The pilot so often tries to navigate him like he navigates the stars. It’s amazing and completely, utterly terrifying. When Poe’s behind the stick, it’s a thing of beauty to see. His mind’s so sharp, running a million lightyears a minute. But when that same expression is turned on him, it’s all Finn can do not to carry himself off into the night. Get absolutely drunk and forget he ever said anything.

“Why…” Poe falters, just a step, and Finn wants to curl into nothingness. “Why do you think you have to be sorry? You’ve never had to be sorry with me before. Why now?” His hand falls warm and reassuring on Finn’s arm but he barely feels it. “What’s going on?”

Can he really even put it all into words?

Poe’s fingers creep to his jaw, pull him down and in and close so all Finn sees are big brown eyes instead of empty stars.

“Talk to me. It’s ok.”

But how? His throat feels too tight and his thoughts too scattered. It’s been boiling for a long time though. Since Exegol, and the end of the war. Well, end was relative then. There was still time, he thought, to adjust. To make some kind of connection to the real world besides the only place he’s known outside the First Order. But then there was bureaucracy. Expectations to meet and a different war to fight. Now after ten years…ten years simmering in the same doubt, wondering about the future…

The future’s finally come.

“There’s no more war left to fight,” he says softly. “I don’t know what to do, Poe. I really, really don’t. I thought I knew who I would be, what I would want to do, but it’s just so—blank.”

“Finn, there’s so much you could do. There’s so much **_to_** you,” Poe says softly. “You’re more than just a means to an end.”

And there he goes, right to the heart of it. Right to Finn’s heart, actually. In the First Order, it was clear that’s what he was: a means to an end. In the Resistance, it was less apparent. More subtle. But it was still there. An undercurrent of understanding, of knowing that his life wasn’t worth more than the cause. He chose to stand for that cause, and he still does. Finn made that choice. He doesn’t find that he regrets it. Being Resistance meant family. Meant people who loved and cared about him. But a tiny flickering flame of fear remained. Now it’s burst into full inferno at the close of talks, when the work finally comes to an end.

Will those people still love him even when he has nothing to offer?

Part of him argues, _Yes of course they will, yes why do you even ask?_ But the other looks at the future, at its vastness, and balks. Why would people stay when there are so many places to go? And, in turn, how could he possibly know which way to go himself?

“Some people, people like you, you can look up at the stars and see a path. A destination or a purpose. When I look up there, I see…enormity. I see an endless sea of choices I can’t possibly make. I don’t have a map, I don’t even know the first step.” He quiets, throat tight. “What if people don’t need me anymore? What if I can’t follow where you go?”

He turns to Poe, fully takes him in. It feels like the first time he’s really seeing him, in a strange way. The silver at his temples and peppering his beard, no longer the boyish scruff he’d kept in the early days—change. Evidence of a hard life lived in the scars dotting his skin—memory. These he knows, but somehow they seem so new. There’s lines in Poe’s body that he could trace with his eyes closed. But there are others there he hadn’t fully recognized. A stiff, proud line up his back and across his shoulders even when they stand close together like this. When had that started? Why hadn’t he noticed? Finn’s stomach rolls. Poe’s already different. Leaving the past behind. Charting his way into the future with the same confident tilt of his jaw he’s always had, even if his chin is lowered now, dipping under the weight of his worried brow. Finn so desperately wants some kind of reassurance but at this point, he’s not sure what that would look like. Sound like. Or what he would even believe.

“When you first woke up, after Starkiller, I had a lot of the same thoughts,” Poe says gently.

He lets out a deep sigh, like he’s finally letting go of something, and wraps his arms around Finn’s waist. It’s not enough to make him feel trapped—besides, right now more than anything, Finn craves the contact and he thanks every star he can name that Poe knows that.

“The base on D’Qar was destroyed,” Poe continues, thumbing his side just above his belt. “I volunteered for a suicide mission. Ready to die for the cause, because what was I existing for if not that.”

Oh. _That’s_ what he was letting go of. Finn’s heart aches. “You never said anything…”

“I know. It took a long time to make peace with it,” he admits. “But then, there wasn’t time. Then you were awake and I was so happy to see you and everything flew into a frenzy. You and Rose were trying so hard to find the guy, and the Resistance was just running—I thought that was the end, I really did. I didn’t know where to go or what to do. Leia was out, I felt completely powerless. Like no matter what choice I made it was going to be the wrong one.”

He takes a deep breath and Finn finds himself mirroring. “There’s a point to all this, I promise. What I’m trying to say is, I didn’t have a clear path. Didn’t have a map. What gave me direction was our friends. And you. Especially you.”

“Me?”

“When you stood with me in that bunker, ready to face down the First Order, your path looked so clear. I knew right then I would follow you anywhere. I stand by that.”

Poe tilts back an inch. Enough to raise his eyebrows.

It’s an invitation. One Finn’s seen before but never had the courage to take.

Just like that, Finn collapses in on him. He throws his arms over Poe’s shoulders, buries his face in the pilot’s neck and tries so hard to stifle a deep, empty sob. It’s as if Poe’s words opened a floodgate. Now he’s drowning. Poe the only thing left to cling to in the surge of emotion deep in his heart. His body shakes with questions even as he tries to tamp them down. Poe’s fingers grip tight in his jacket, fingers trace over the old scar across his back. His beard scratches as he rubs their cheeks together and murmurs soothing nothings. What is the name of this feeling? What is all of this and why does it hurt so much? Why can’t he accept a future that Poe’s offering? Where his friends are safe and well and still around? Where they don’t keep him because they need him but simply because he’s wanted?

Oh.

“I’m afraid.” Stars, the admission feels like so much. His voice wavers; he manages to keep it all at bay. “Poe, I’m so afraid. What if we do this—” He’s not sure what he even means by ‘this’. “—and it all goes to hell? Poe, I don’t know where I’m going.”

“You don’t have to. Sweetheart, our paths may not be clear. The future might be ambiguous and open. But if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that I will always, always follow you. Or lead you. Or walk beside you. Whatever you need, wherever you are, we go on together. And I’m not the only one who would promise it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. You think Rose and Rey and Jannah would leave you behind? After all we’ve been through and done together?” His tone is softly chiding but his eyes beg for understanding.

“I don’t want them to,” Finn admits thickly. “I don’t want them to.”

“And they won’t. I know the strength of their convictions, and so do you. Sometimes it’s just hard to see from inside a hole,” he says, gently tapping the center of Finn’s chest. “You can always count on them. And you can always count on me.”

With each tap, something loosens in Finn’s heart and he says, rather more weepy than he’d like, “You always know how to navigate me. Know me better than the stars.”

Poe huffs softly and traces the arch of his cheek, wiping away some wetness that gathers there. “That’s cheesy.”

“You like that about me?” It comes out a question; he doesn’t mean for it to.

“One of so many things,” Poe murmurs. He takes a deep breath in again, squeezes so tight Finn bleeds into him. “I'm with you all the way. You gonna be ok?”

Finn smiles. This time it feels more real. And, “Yeah, I will,” doesn’t feel like a lie.


End file.
